Margarete Gröwel (14 August 1899 – 20 January 1979) was a German teacher who became a politician (
DZP,
CDU).[1] Later, in 1953, she became the first woman to serve in the German consular service in
Houston.[2]
Life
Early years
Margarete Gröwel was born in
Hamburg. She qualified as a teacher and taught at a
Catholic school for boys in the city's
St. Georg quarter.[3] After the Catholic schools in Hamburg were closed down, in 1934, she enrolled as a student at
University of Hamburg where she studied
Philology,
History,
Ethnology and
Philosophy.[1] She progressed with her studies and in 1937 received a doctorate, for which she was supervised by the ethnographer-anthropologist
Georg Thilenius. Her dissertation concerned the education problems of
"Indian" (Native American) children in the
United States.[3] After passing the necessary further exams she worked in a teacher training college and at a
secondary school in Hamburg.[1]
Active participation in quasi-political associations during the Weimar years evidently placed Margarete Gröwel on a list of potential government targets. The
failed assassination attempt against
Hitler was followed by a mass-roundup of people identified as anti-Nazis. The overwhelming majority of those arrested in what came to be known as "
Aktion Gitter" had been active as members or supporters of the
Communist or
Social Democratic Party during the
Weimar years. A handful had not. There is no indication in the sources that Gröwel was ever a Communist or a Socialist (or a Nazi), but during August 1944 she was one of approximately five thousand people arrested.[5] She was taken to the
concentration camp at
Fuhlsbüttel on the north side of the
city centre.[1] However, she was released on 29 August 1944.[6]
Postwar politics
War ended in May 1945, leaving
Hamburg in the
British occupation zone (after May 1949 part of the
Federal Republic of (West) Germany). There was a widespread view that it was the failure of the traditional political parties to present a united front that had enabled
populist politicians to take power in 1933, and the
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was created in 1945 to embrace the entire palette of centrist and moderate right-wing political traditions. In Hamburg Margarete Gröwel was a co-founder.[3] She became a deputy president (and chair of the Women's Committee) in the new party in the
British zone. At the party's first national conference, held in
Goslar in 1950, she was elected a member of the party's national executive.[7]
Locally, during the early postwar years she took a job at the library attached to the
Hamburg Museum of Ethnology, where her former tutor
Georg Thilenius had been the director for three decades till 1935. She was politically active locally as a member of the city council,[3] and as president of the city's cultural commission closely involved in negotiations over cultural matters with
Ascan Klée Gobert [
de] and
Gerd Bucerius.[8]
Beyond politics
In 1953 she married the Austrian engineer Maximilian Sztollar, after which her name became Margareta Sztollar-Gröwel.[3] This coincided with the conclusion of her direct political involvement, and she joined the West German consular office in
Houston,
Texas, the first woman ever to do so.[3] She worked to develop commercial relations between West Germany and the American south. After her return from Houston she took on the same function closer to home, at
Liège in
Belgium, where she was posted between 1962 and 1964.
^Helmut Stubbe da Luz: Margareta Gröwel. In: Günther Buchstab u.a. (Hrsg.): Christliche Demokraten gegen Hitler: Aus Verfolgung und Widerstand zur Union. Herder, Freiburg 2004,
ISBN3-451-20805-9, p. 227.
^Helmut Stubbe da Luz: Union der Christen – Splittergruppe – Integrationspartei. Wurzeln und Anfänge der Hamburger CDU bis Ende 1946. Dissertation, Universität Hamburg, 1990.
Dorls (from 13 December 1950 WAV-Gast, from 17 January 1951 WAV, from 26 September 1951 Non-attached, am 23 October 1952 Mandatsaberkennung)
Frommhold (from 7 September 1949 Nationale Rechte, from 5 October 1950 Non-attached (DRP), from 26 March 1952 DP-Gast, from 11 February 1953 Non-attached)
Miessner (from 5 October 1950 FDP-Gast, from 20 December 1950 FDP)
Rößler (from 15 September 1949 Nationale Rechte, from 6 September 1950 Non-attached, from 13 December 1950 WAV-Gast, from 17 January 1951 WAV, from 26 September 1951 Non-attached, until 21 February 1952)
Thadden (from 15 September 1949 Nationale Rechte; 1950 DRP, from 20 April 1950 Non-attached)
Ott (Non-attached, from 4 May 1950 WAV-Gast, from 13 October 1950 BHE/DG, from 21 March 1952 Non-attached, from 26 March 1952 DP/DPB-Gast, from 26 June 1952 Non-attached)